Pilsen beer

From a small Asunción brewery to a national brand

The Asunción daily ABC Color traces the company to the brothers Juan and Pedro Bosio, two employees of one of the capital’s first breweries who took over the business in 1898. In 1910 the Bosio family’s brewery became a limited company under the name Cervecería Nacional, settled on Hernandarias street in the capital, and in 1912 it launched its own brand, Pilsen.

Wikipedia dates the brand to 12 October 1912 and calls it the oldest beer brand in Paraguay, and the newspaper Última Hora reported on its 95th anniversary in 2007. For the anniversary, actors in early 20th-century costume walked the streets of Asunción selling mock newspapers that announced: “At last we have beer.”

According to ABC Color, a 1938 decree barred the word “Nacional” from company names, and the brewery became Cervecería Paraguaya SA. According to the brand, quoted by ABC Color, after the Chaco War broke out in 1932 the company put its plant at the country’s service, making ice and bottling water that its own vehicles carried to the front.

The beer and its bottles

Pilsen is a classic lager, described by Wikipedia as a pale golden pilsner. ABC Color lists it in cans, small bottles, on draught and in the 940 ml bottle Paraguayans call the ñoño, a size the brand still sells today.

Over the years the range has widened. Pilsen Ñande, a line brewed with cassava (mandioca), came in red, white and black versions, which Wikipedia describes as an amber lager, a wheat beer and a dark lager.

Football, music and gatherings

Pilsen has long been the beer of Paraguayan football. Wikipedia records that it sponsored the national team at the 1998, 2002, 2006 and 2010 World Cups, and ABC Color reported in 2024 that it was the official sponsor of the Paraguayan Football Association, backing the national team at the 2024 Copa América and the 2026 World Cup.

Infonegocios, a Paraguayan business magazine, calls Pilsen the country’s national beer and its favourite, a brand tied to football, music and social gatherings. In October 2019 it reported that Pilsen was about to go on sale in Spain, the first time a Paraguayan beer had entered Europe, starting in Valencia, Barcelona and Madrid.

The brewery today

Cervepar belongs to the Anheuser-Busch InBev group. Infonegocios reported in November 2018 that it had opened new can and bottle packaging halls worth 60 million US dollars, where Pilsen is filled alongside group brands such as Brahma and Budweiser. In Emblem World, Pilsen sits in the Paraguay drink collection, where people discover and rate local food, drink and music.